This invention relates to a series of jacketed individual bodies of homogeneous, resiliently compressible cushioning material joined together in a string adapted for use in various assemblies and orientations as the core cushioning material of mattresses, seat cushions, pillows, and upholstery.
Strings of pocketed wire springs have been employed for about a century in assemblies of such springs as cores for mattresses and cushions, beginning with the mattress construction patented by James Marshall in 1901, U.S. Pat. No. 685,160.
Similarly, chemistry has provided the bedding and furniture industry with foamed elastomeric material of a variety of kinds which have gained wide acceptance as cushioning materials, primarily in integral form as slabs or blocks when constituting the primary cushion core material, or in sheet form for use as padding on the faces or around the borders of assemblies of wire springs.
While some effort has been made to develop cushion cores from assemblies of individual elements of foamed elastomeric material, they have not come into widespread use, due perhaps to difficulty of manufacture. Examples are found in U.S. Pat. No. 2,858,881-Newall and U.S. Pat. No. 4,194,255-Poppe.
The present invention adapts the pocketed spring technology to the manufacture of strings of individually jacketed, discrete cushion elements of homogenous resiliently compressible material, which facilitates their use in various assembly combinations and orientations made available by the omnidirectional resilience of the material itself